History
It's the year
2023....the cruel human oppression of the worlds Monkey population for medical
lab experiments continues despite Dan Winfield's Mon-keys' decades of Rebel
Resistance in the SLF (Simian Liberation Front). Through various business
tactics Dan's Monkey has amassed a small fortune to support his rebel force
committed to the eventual goal of freedom for all Monkeys around the
world. Unfortunately he has also blown most of his fortune on Banana Brew
and cheap hookers. Then in Canada it is realised the aging fleet of
CF-18's is almost all grounded due to structural stress from decades of combat
use. The Canadian Government has continued it's decades of budgetary
cutbacks for military spending and the option of replacing the aging
fighter interceptor fleet is impossible. Notices are sent out to secure a
contractor that can refurbish the CF-18 Fleet and bring them up to proper
structural integrity. Dan's Mon-key under the guise of "DM Plane
Fixing Services" secures a contract to refurbish one CF-18 for $17 million
dollars. The plane chosen is the Millennium Hornet now faded and sitting
in an apple orchard in unusable condition. Dan's Mon-key's plan is to take
the 17 million dollars and build the first interceptor for the Simian
Liberation Front Airforce with the hope that by the time the Canadian government
figures out what he is up to, he will have brought the US and Canada to their
knees with his one new fighter aircraft.
Dan's Mon-key
quickly decides the best way to deal with structural weakness in an airframe is
to cut away the vast bulk of the airframe.....so the whole back half of the
plane is cut away with an axe and the project begins. Stupid Cousin Larry
insisted on a tail gun, so a 60mm 7 barrelled gattling gun is designed and
fitted as a rear gun....and operated by his Stupid Cousin Larry. Stupid
Cousin Larry insists on having an injection seat fitted in the tail gunner
compartment.....Dan's Mon-key reluctantly agrees to this expense but decides to
save money by using an ejection seat with no rocket motors and not installing an
ejection hatch above the tail gunner ejection seat......Stupid Cousin Larry
never figures out these 2 small details.
Another design feature is the
installation of a 6 barrel 60mm gattling gun in each of the former engine
intakes as well as a 4 barrel 20mm cannon in the nose of the plane. All
these improvements are designed to give the fighter the punch it needs top take
on the might of the Canadian and US Airforces. The new SLF fighter
prototype is also fitted with 4 heat seeking missiles....one on each wingtip and
two on a center line pylon. And finally the plane carries 8 bombs for
ground attack missions. The engines were purchased from Industrial Light
and Magic and had been used on an actually full sized Pod Racer created for
filming the Star Wars movie Episode #1. Unfortunately the weapons systems
were all fitted before the engines were installed, so weapons system/propulsion
system design conflicts weren't noticed till the maiden flight into
battle.
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The maiden mission was simple
enough....take off at dawn and destroy anything they come across. The
extreme weight of the aircraft's weapon systems and tiny wings weren't taken
into consideration....this would prove to be a somewhat critical flaw to the
design. Our two furball Freedom Fighters launched down the runway of the
local airport in search of prey.......it was decided to go after all airliners
as they would prove easy targets. As they raced down the runway getting
airborne proved impossible.....finally with feet to go the tiny fighter lifted
off and spent the next few miles hopping hedges trying to gain altitude.
After 30 minutes of flying time they spotted their first target....a tiny single
engine Cessna piloted by an older lady of 80 plus years of age. Dan's
Mon-key fired a heat seeking missile which promptly went straight into one of
the SLF fighters' engines with a huge explosion. Our heros raced now quite
out of control past the Cessna only to see the old lady give our terrified heros
the finger and a wink. Stupid Cousin Larry let loose the tail gun at her
but she proved to be a better pilot and avoided being hit. By this point
Stupid Cousin Larry was frantically yanking on his ejection seat handle to no
effect.
Dan's Mon-key was now determined to
get this obviously rude Grandmother that wasn't taking his Freedom Fighting
cause very seriously. As he got on the tail of the Cessna for the second
pass, he decided to us his twin 60 mm forward firing gattling guns to avoid a
missile blowing up his remaining engine. The gattling guns don't work out
so well. It seems they are lined up with all the power cable linkages on
the sides of the forward fuselage and the remaining engine is now blasted free
from the SLF fighter. Stupid cousin Larry begin to fire his gun in a
"beyond frantic" attempt to maintain some forward momentum....this had
a slight effect for 15 more seconds till all his ammo is exhausted. Dan's
Mon-key spotted an airliner down below on the tarmac and drops his bomb
load....and over his shoulder he can see the airliner explode and ARC
contributor Will Hendriks shaking his fist in rage.
The engineless pod makes a very fast
decent with Stupid Cousin Larry shrieking like a baby Chimp all the way
down to a very rough landing. They both piled onto Mon-keys trike while
being buzzed by the Cessna and made their getaway before the authorities could
catch up to them. Dan Winfield had to begin working extra shifts at his
job to replace the destroyed airliner.
The Model
The project was simple....enter the
contest with the best model and win the main prize and prove that a Mon-key can
build a better model than a bunch of dim witted humans.
Items used were one 1/32 Star Wars
Pod racer kit (engines and engine power cable linkages)....a 1/48 Monogram
F-18.....1/48 Leading
Edge Millennium sheet.......1/72 Leading
Edge Millennium sheet...plus plenty of styrene items for scratch building
purposes from Evergreen Styrene.
Basic hacking is
done. The main landing gear wells had to be cut from the rear half
of fuselage and moved forward to be grafted onto forward fuselage. A
Dremel Mini-Mite is critical for modifications like this |
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Back end is capped
off with sheet styrene......at this point I have no clue how to finish
back end. |
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There is filler
galore. |
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Cockpit is very
nice OOB....but I added sidewall detail...plus I added some coiled wire to
the right side of cockpit. |
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A hole is cut for a
rear turret. The whole rear area of this model is filled with metal
to keep the tail on the ground to support the engines. It was
critical for the full effect that the engines be only supported by their
"power cables". |
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A simple but
effective scratch built nose gun. First start with large plastic
tube. This is thinned from the inside, so it looks like thin
metal. Cap it of with sheet styrene......drill 4 holes and insert 4
styrene rods to act as gun barrels.....then finally drill tiny holes in
the end of the rods to give the look of gun barrels. |
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Linkages from Star
Wars pod racer kit were used as well as the engines. |
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Tail end is created
with the use of autobody finishing filler. Tail gun will slip over
white rod. |
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Wings are on.
The wings are the 1/48 vertical stabilizers sanded smooth and shaped to
fit their new location. |
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Power cables are
brass tubing wrapped in brass wire. The wire was soldered at both
ends to the tubing. My Dremel Mini-mite was used to spin the brass
tubing, so I could quickly wrap the wire around the brass tubing.
Mon-keys are smarter than humans you know. |
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Ready for painting. |
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Bottom side after
painting. |
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Top side all
painted and coated in Future and ready for decals. |
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Engines were first
sprayed with SnJ metalizer. Then a mixture of black Chalk
pastels (NOT oil pastels) was mixed with a bit of water and
dishwashing soap. The dishwashing soap breaks the surface tension of
the water and also provides a bit of stick for the "chalk paint"
you're creating. This mixture is paint carelessly on the engines at
right and allowed to fully dry. Then excess chalk is wiped off with
dry kleenx and dry Q-Tips cotton swabs and raised details covered in SnJ
come shining through. A damp kleenex was used in some spots to
remove black chalk. The mixture is easy to remove if you don't get
it right the first time you can do it again and again till you get the
look you want. |
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Tail gattling gun
and two forward firing gattling guns were made using styrene tubing
and a couple of discs cut from sheet styrene with holes drilled in the
styrene discs. Laquar thinner is my glue of choice for fine work
like this....it works as well as Tenax, but at a fraction of the
cost. |
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Two sets of Leading
Edge Millennium sheets were used....one in 1/48 for the main section
of the fuselage and 1/72 decals were used for the wings. So the
light decal stripes directly beside the cockpit are 1/48 decals that blend
into the 1/72 stripes that sweep across the wings. The original 1/48
horizontal stabilizers were cut to the size of 1/72 F-18 Vertical
stabilizers and then used as vertical stabilizers. 1/72 Leading
Edge Millennium vertical stabilizer decals were used for the
vertical stabilizers. |
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I can not speak highly enough
about the pleasure I had using Leading
Edge decals....they are an amazing product and an absolute treat to
use......I'm now fully hooked on their products.
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